Lynne Honickman Grants $100,000 for Matching Donations to CeaseFirePA

With a $100,000 challenge grant to CeaseFirePA, Lynne Honickman, founder and president of The Honickman Foundation and a board member of CeaseFirePA, is supporting communities calling for an end to gun violence. The foundation’s grant was publicly announced at a ceremony at City Hall attended by Honickman, Governor Ed Rendell, Councilman Darrell Clarke and executive director of CeaseFirePA, Shira Goodman.

CeaseFirePA is a statewide organization working with mayors, police chiefs, faith leaders, community organizations and individual Pennsylvanians to take a stand against gun violence. Describing the potential impact of Honickman’s grant on the work of the organization, Goodman says:

Our goal at CeaseFirePA is to grow the numbers and voices of Pennsylvanians demanding change. This challenge grant can be transformative in expanding our network, amplifying our voices, and mulitplying our impact. We will not rest until our elected officials heed the call of the people demanding that they stand with us to fight gun violence.

Honickman made the foundation’s donation a matching grant, not just a gift, because she wants everyone to know that no contribution is too small to help in the fight against gun violence, and that the voices of many are stronger than the voice of any one individual.

She believes that this gift and the matching dollars it generates will allow CeaseFirePA to build a stronger ground force, enabling the organization to compete with the NRA’s dominance in our state — and in our nation. She understands that gun violence, whether directed at a member of Congress or a child walking home from school, happens because our elected officials have made a series of deliberate policy judgments that guns should be easy to buy, sell and carry by nearly anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Honickman has always been passionate about the issue of gun violence, viewing it as a public health crisis that produces tremendous stress on health systems, communities, families and children. She made the foundation’s grant now because after the Las Vegas shooting, she wants all of us to understand that it is time to act to end the senseless violence. It is her hope that this gift and the matching dollars it generates will enable CeaseFirePA to fight on the ground in Harrisburg and in communities large and small to keep families safe, making a less violent future a reality for all Pennsylvanians.